MINION love – Back-to-School Theme for Preschool and Kindergarten!

Since the arrival of Despicable Me 2 in theatres this summer, our kids are, once again, enthralled with MINIONS! We like to draw them, color them, create them, play with them, and trade Minion toys brought from home. In order to capitalize on our current interest, I’ve made MINIONS our back-to-school theme this year! I hope your kids will enjoy creating, learning, and playing with the activities, too!

Materials needed: One Minion Play Dough Counting Mat (linked above) for each child and blue/yellow play dough or clay.

Print the Counting Mats and laminate for durability. Demonstrate for the children how to roll a small amount of play dough in the palm of their hands to form a ball. It seems like a simple task, but it is a fine motor achievement for tiny hands! For very young children/toddlers, have them tear off a portion of dough to place in the circles on their mats.

Introduce the numbers on the mats as they are introduced in the classroom or at home. Have the children count out loud as they place each ball in the corresponding circles on the counting mats.

Print the name tags (linked above) for each child and laminate for durability (clear contact paper can also be used if laminating supplies are not readily available). The children can use the tags to practice writing their names or other words they are working on. The tags can also be labeled with each child’s name and placed on desktops/tables at home or in the classroom!

Have the children paint the craft sticks/clothespins with yellow paint and allow to dry thoroughly before adding features. Our kids made the features with blue/black/white Wikki Stix. The children can also draw their features on with permanent markers if desired (be sure to use a paint smock or old T-shirt when allowing the children to use permanent markers to protect clothing).

Activity for the Minion Clothespin Craft: Number a paper plate with any number the children are working on. Have the children use their Minion clothespin crafts to clip the corresponding number of clothespins to the edge of the plate. It is great one-to-one correspondence and fine motor activity!

Activity for the Minion craft stick craft: Label the back of the Minion craft sticks with an uppercase letter the children have had introduced. Label different Minion craft sticks with the matching lowercase letters. Have the children work to match the uppercase and lowercase Minions.

More Minion Math Activities and Crafts for Back to School are here! Bee doo bee doo! 🙂